Mumbai Congress has no full-time president after Milind Deora resigned from the party after losing the Lok Sabha elections; he resigned as Mumbai Regional Congress Committee president in September 2019. Subsequently, the Congress leadership could not appoint Deora’s successor because of internal squabbling and stress. Congress’s interim president Sonia Gandhi appointed former MP and a Dalit leader Eknath Gaikwad as the executive president who is currently looking after the party organisation and its functioning. The Congress party in Mumbai is soon to get a new full-time president. Former minister Suresh Shetty, legislator Bhai Jagtap and former legislators Madhu Chavan and Charanjit Singh Sapra are the frontrunners for the post.
However, the chorus is increasing among the leaders and rank and file for the appointment of a full-time president especially when the election to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is criticized for 2022. They insist that a full-time president will get at least 15 months to strengthen the party organisation by increasing presence in 227 wards in the city and thereby improve the tally from the present 30 seats. Jagtap is a firebrand labour union leader and is a member of the state legislative council. He is currently the vice president of the Mumbai unit. He had condemned the former president Sanjay Nirupam for practising his own memo and creating unrest in the party.
Meanwhile, he accused Maha Vikas Aghadi for actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. He is one of the party hoppers, he made a career with Shiv Sena, later on, joined Congress enjoyed every authority, and now aiming to join BJP but he has not succeeded in it. Former minister Suresh Shetty, who has been a close confidante of former union minister Sunil Dutt, lost the 2014 election and later did not contest the 2019 assembly election. He enjoys a good rapport with the Gandhi-Nehru family. Charan Singh Sapra is a former member of the state council. After the Punjab Maharashtra Cooperative Bank scam, Sapra has been participating in agitations seeking justice for the depositors.
